Unfinished Tale
by Edelin
Summary: They didn't have time to live what the felt, what they had just discovered they felt for one another. All they could do was sent letters until one of the died or they were able to be together again. KakaSaku


Hello everyone.

This is an oneshot I worked on... It is written in an epistolary form so there is no action taking place or dialogue. I hope you will enjouy it though. I personally like the epistolary novels I've read a lot. All of them I think. Also this is inspired by theme 154: Unfinished Tale from the 500themes challenge.

I am not sure if this actually worthy of your time but I had fun writing it and I would like to hear what all of you might have to say. Thank you.

Anyway... enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

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><p>Sakura,<p>

War is hell. I have lived through this torment of uncertainty, instability and violence before but now – that I am older and know how all wars end – I am afraid more than before. It's not the battles I am afraid of, but the silence after them. The emptiness I feel knowing that all this hell, all this pain, all this destruction that leaves the world in pieces, could be avoided if one person thought differently. If Madara was killed when he should, if Sasuke could see reason instead of enemies around him, if thing were different, all this could be avoided.

If things were different, we could be together now instead of so far apart. If I was more courageous and had spoke to you earlier, we would have lived more together than a few weeks in a hectic environment trying to cheat time to be closer that we were allowed. Than we had the chance to. I am so frightened of time little flower. I am so scared of the silence after the battle, of the gospel truth that I am no hero here, but just a weapon that can only cause destruction and death.

I am scared of time... I barely have the time to write you this letter. This pathetic piece of paper and a bunch of meaningless words are my only means of contacting you and I _barely _have the time to do even this. I am trying to force so many emotions and meanings, situations and thoughts in so few words and I understand as I write this that, as I write every letter, that I am miserably failing.

Forgive me, my flower. You love – for a reason I don't comprehend – someone like me who, his whole life, has just spread pain and death. I have never done anything for peace. And for that I'll always envy you Sakura. You give life, ensure that people live. _You heal. _You healed _me _by being the color of my life.

Kakashi

XXX

Kakashi,

It's not just there, at the front line of the battlefield that people die. You can't understand how much I suffer seeing so many comrades of mine come daily at the intimacy and be damaged beyond repair. They've lost legs, hands, eyes... they've lost their ability to do their job and are deemed as useless, broken weapons of no more use. It saddens me, Kakashi.

And it scares me. Every time I hear someone new has come, I always feel my heart pound harder inside my chest because it might be you.

You, covered in blood, in pieces... _dead_. Or nearly dead. Do you believe this is easy? Do you think it is easy to live, knowing that the man you've admired the most for years, you secretly loved for years, may love you back but you can't dream of a future with him, because he may die every minute and you know that if let yourself dream of the future, you will be crushed by the realization of your worst nightmares?

I may be weak in mind and spirit for thinking like that. It may be proof that I am not suitable for that lifestyle but I can't help it, Kakashi. I don't want to do anything about it. I can't stop loving you and the best thing I can do is not think about how much I love you. How much I _wish_ I could be with you in a different life, in a life that would allow us to be together, to be a couple, to fully and without fear be in love.

War is indeed hell, Kakashi. But you trapped inside that hell only if you can lose everything, only if your whole world depends on one person – YOU – and that person is in the front line, the one to be killed first of all.

I am scared of time too. I am scared that it will pass us by and we will not be able to follow its flow together. One of us will be forced to stay behind and the other will be forced to move on. I want to tell you that if you die, if we are separated, I will die with you...

...but I can't. Because if I do that, it'd mean that if the roles are reversed, you'd have to die along with me... and I don't want that.

I want you to live. Live life as much as possible, as you choose to live it. Even if that means that I will be left where all dead people are meant to be, in your memories.

But I told you... I don't want to think of the future, it scares me. I will just live the presence and treasure the few moments we spent, hoping that I will be able to see how our story will progress after this.

Sakura.

XXX

Sakura,

I am wondering sometimes during the night; will our story have an end? I suppose it will. All stories have an end. It may not be the end we want. Our relationship may just be these letters. It may not get the chance to be something more than these letters, our dreams and the few moments we spent with each other as lovers... but it will always be an important and serious relationship.

It is the relationship that changed my life... even just receiving a letter from you, a piece of paper you've touched, maybe even caressed is a connection to you. I can kiss it and feel that somehow, indirectly I am kissing a part of you.

I can dream of the day that I won't have to caress a piece of paper from you, but you directly. I hope I will be able to do it, one day.

One day soon.

I am so glad you are not here and yet so sad you are not with me. I am always so scared when I learn that a new field medic has arrived because it may be you sent here... and you may also die here and I won't be able to protect you.

Or I will protect you and jeopardize the mission, the plan of war because I love you more than the village, more than the world.

Do you know how many times I dream of disappearing? Of running at you and stealing you away from that place? I plan it all, how we could just cheat death and life and live, just the two of us, at a remote island, away from all that hurts us? How we could get lost with the civilians and live. Grow old together, have children – a daughter like you – and live together.

It seems so easy inside my mind.

Yet, I know that you would never do that. I know that when the sun goes up, I stop being the man Kakashi who is incredibly in love with you and your perfection, and I become the soldier that has only one purpose in mind; to fight, to serve.

It doesn't mean I don't love you during the day. I just don't have the time to think of the escape root, of the way to flee from this place and ran to you. Maybe I am more mad for you when I ran against the enemy, knowing that it may be my last moment and I want to spend that last thought at you.

But I can't escape from my duty, Sakura. I can't flee. I decide every night that I just want to leave and never come back but I never get to do it. I always end up not leaving. I always say to myself that I will survive one more day here and then come to you.

And deep down I know Sakura that even I did come to you and asked you to leave everything behind, no matter how far away we ran to – given that you were willing to leave your position as a medic, to betray the village for a life with me -, we would always carry the war within us.

We would have left there our whole life and be forever hunted by the guilt that we truly left Naruto alone. We left all the people that depended on us and fought and protected us from danger, alone and defenseless.

I know that if we ran away together, we would end up hating each other and ourselves, blaming our love for all the destruction we would cause by just vanishing. We would hate each other because we would have stopped being who we were and chose to be.

I wouldn't be the man you fell in love with as you wouldn't be the redemption, the light, the flower, the woman, the missing piece of my life that I desired my whole life.

I am an egoist, you see. I love the idea of loving you more than you, I think. I prefer to die here, instead of jeopardizing my feelings for you.

Forgive me for not being courageous enough again so we could ran away together.

Kakashi

XXX

Kakashi,

I learned that the carriers couldn't give you this month's food supplies. How will you fight without food? How mad will you be driven without food and water? I wish I could run to you and bring something to eat, to give you my piece of bread so you could have enough strength to live one more day, fight and survive one more day.

I hate death, Kakashi. I know that it is natural for creatures to die but it is not natural to die like that. I see so many young boys and girls that during peace would still be playing games, be sent at the infirmacy half dead and so scared.

They are scared of death. They _don't want_ to die, Kakashi, and they are afraid to accept that they are so close to death. And I can't lie to them to tell them that they won't. I can't tell them that everything will be alright, neither can I accuse them of cowardice because they are children, forced to grow up.

I am scared too. How can I tell ten years old that they shouldn't be afraid of death, when I, a grown up jounin and head medic, am scared of death. It is logical to fear the unknown.

How can I accuse them of that? How can I not be afraid of that?

Sometimes I wonder though, if I had to choose between living among the ashes of the world when the war ends or die along with people I love, what would I choose?

Would I be able to chose the latter? I think that... I would choose the first option, because the world – including me as part of it – can be reborn from its ashes. The dead may just vanish in oblivion, in a space between time and life, if such a place exists.

I am a coward. I want all this to end, no matter the cost. I want to press a forward button and in one moment be at a place where there won't be more battles to be fought. Where I wouldn't have to live in uncertainty about who is dead or alive.

I will know what I have and what I've lost.

I am a despicable human being. How can you love me? Will you still be able to love me after reading this letter?

Sakura

XXX

Sakura,

I am cold. I am hungry. I can barely write this. It requires my ultimate strength. But it's alright because you deserve everything – no matter how small it may be – that I can offer.

I have a confession to make. I know you won't like it and if you were here, you would scold me for thinking that but yesterday when I was sent to the battlefield, I stopped for a moment and watched all the people around me – enemies and allies – fight, I felt so small, so _useless_, and thought that it would be so easy to just wait for someone to kill me, so I could escape from this repeat of death.

I am the only one that is still here, Sakura, of the original team that was sent here. I am the only one still alive and I fund myself envying the dead because they have escaped.

But as I felt someone approach me and I knew he was going to kill me – I felt it – I suddenly didn't want to die. I wanted to live, even if my life continued to be this hell.

Do you know why?

Because if I come out of this alive, I will, one day, be able to go back to you, to the village. If I don't die here, I will be able to return and be happy.

Only if I survive through this I will ever have the chance to be happy.

For that – only for that – I fought back and protected myself. It wasn't for my village or for my duty. It was so one day I would be happy, free of the war.

I hate war Sakura but I am not afraid of it. I am not afraid if its violence or its way existing. I am afraid though of its ramifications. The results of war – the proofs that a war has taken place somewhere – are what scares me.

Not what happens before and during a war, a battle, but what happens after it. Of facing the changed world while you, yourself, have been changed irreversibly by just being one of the people that have to rebuild the world.

And that is a real challenge Sakura. You know what was wrong in the previous world and if you are one of the survivors, you can get to rebuild the world, you could make it better than it was so no war would ever take place again.

But no matter how much humans think they can change the world, they won't ever make a difference because they can't change what causes the world to lead itself to war; their nature.

Indeed, we are slaves of our nature, of our uncontrollable instincts, the ones that we think we have full control over until a certain moment of our life that a big opportunity arises and we are tempted.

Then... it will truly be judged who has control over his or her instincts. The ones that will be able to walk away have won over themselves but will probably live their whole life without anyone knowing how great they are while the ones who succumb to their desire, to their instincts mark history, some of them at least.

I am going mad, my flower. I can's stand the cold anymore or the hunger.

Or the thirst.

I really want to give in to my instincts but a part of me is still fighting against the insanity that exists around me.

I am going mad, Sakura.

I need to ask for help...

… but I am totally alone, with no one to depend on but myself, my mad, exhausted self.

Forgive me.

Kakashi

XXX

Kakashi,

Ino died. My best friend, my rival, my childhood companion, the person I admired so much since I was a child, is part of the other world. I can't believe that she is dead.

As I can't believe that Shino, Hinata, Lee and so many others are dead. They all died. I don't remember the order or the time each one died. It's like they all died a long time ago. It's like they've dead years now while some of them may have died a few months ago.

You say that is awful to be on the battlefield and I believe you, Kakashi, but it is equally awful to be here, away from the battle, part of the background support, and see so many people you loved, grew up together, die. I feel so useless.

In the end, in the long-run I haven't been able to save my friends, my family.

What's the point of being called a medic prodigy, the one who will be able to surpass one day Lady Tsunade, if I can't save my friends?

I understand now how Naruto felt about not being able to save Sasuke; how that failure was proof that he felt he couldn't become a Hokage, _ever_, if he couldn't even make his best friend, his _brother_, see what's the right thing to do.

I remember how I felt before I chose to study under Lady Tsunade. I feel that way again; like I am some small rock that binds the world and the only thing I can do is slow everyone down.

I try to reason myself during the nights when I have nothing to do but try to sleep, that I have saved so many others. That I have saved my friends so many times before but this was just the end of the line.

This is what God decided would their end of the line.

But every time I think that, I am filled with rage and anger. I can't accept that God has all this planned to happen... because nothing connected to this war is divine. Nothing has anything to do with a greater power that should protect the world and its people.

I wonder sometimes if God has given up on us and has fled to another world, has chosen other races to look after. Have we really made God, our creator, so ashamed of us because of our constant fighting that we are now left totally alone and unprotected.

Unprotected from what? An evil, invisible power that makes us fight? Or of ourselves?

I once was so proud that I was able to save lives, that I could find cures and make a difference perhaps in the world but now I hate it. I hate this job because I can't save anyone in the end. I just watch people come and go and come again until they come so badly wounded that they just die.

I hate it here.

When will this ever end?

Sakura.

XXX

Sakura,

I told you in a previous letter that I wondered if our story will manage to have an end. If our end would just be these letters, these poor attempts to maintain some kind of communications despite the miles that are keeping us apart for so long.

Now...

Now I know.

They will be our end. Our love, our relationship will only be a bunch of paper and some stolen moments in time. We haven't even had a photograph together as a couple. We didn't get the chance to do something like that.

I wish things were different. I wish I could have lived more with you, longer. I wish I could have spent days and nights, mornings and evenings with you.

I wish tomorrow at dawn I wouldn't have to go to that suicide mission.

But I have to and I will.

And I want to ask you one thing, my flower. One thing only.

Live.

Live life after the war. Fall in love and enjoy that love to its fullest. Live without compromises, feel without compromises. And don't ever look back.

If you ever look back, you will be trapped in the past and it is very difficult to escape from the regret and guilt you feel when you think of how different your life could be, if the pas was different.

The past just is and you, because you are alive, are part of the present and the future. You are meant to live because you still can.

If you look back Sakura – like I did when my teammates died – you will find it incredibly difficult to look ahead, and every day that passes will make it even more difficult.

And you will lose opportunities to be happy, to find happiness in the world. Like me.

It took me too much to see that you could be my happiness Sakura and I saw it so late that I didn't get a chance to live and experience that happiness.

Don't do that mistake too, Sakura. For me, please, don't do it.

I don't want you to forget the past – me – and I am very jealous when I think of the lovers that will come to your life and have the chance to be with you in ways I couldn't.

It hurts to know that somehow, over time, you will find love somewhere else but I prefer it that way because it means that you will find happiness later on in life.

And I know that somehow we will meet again.

In another life perhaps, in another world, we will meet again. Because what I feel for you can't just vanish into thin air tomorrow morning. It will live in a weird, supernatural way within the world, as part of the wind perhaps that will caress you skin or the ground on which you will walk.

It will not cease to exist, I know.

So this later should not end with goodbyes and tears but with a promise.

See you later, my flower. And for all we have meant to each other, carry my smile with you as you embrace the world and all it has to offer to you. If you enjoy it, I will enjoy it too, through you.

Kakashi

XXX

The news came before the letter Kakashi. I want to hate you for dying. For dying and at the same time by dying making sure the war will end.

The war ended Kakashi.

But I didn't even get to see your dead body, your corpse. It was destroyed there.

I honestly want to hate you but I can't.

You saved me from that hell and even though I will go through a torment, knowing that you are dead, I will survive.

Because you asked.

Because you are now part of the wind I feel and inhale inside my body, of the ground I walk on, the water I drink. I like this idea that you are all around me, even though I can't see you.

I am not the only one that have lost her loved one. I will survive because I am alive.

And I will love you in a way I will never be able to love anyone else.

But as you asked I will try to live in the present and for the future, leaving you where all dead people are meant to be, in my memories.

I will help Naruto rebuild the village, I will re-organize the hospital, I will fill my life with so many things to do so I won't feel the gap and somehow, sometime in the future I will have finally moved on from you.

As you would have done, if I was dead.

So... this is a promise, my love.

Let's meet again in a different time and place.

Truly yours,

Sakura.

The pink-haired woman looked at all the letters, both the ones she received and wrote during those hellish years that the war lasted and smiled bitterly as she opened the drawer of her desk and put the there.

They were her relationship with him. So he thought.

It didn't matter that he was dead. All it mattered was that he had existed and loved her.

That she had Kakashi as her friend, confidant and lover and their relationship continued until, as he promised, they'd meet again.

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><p>One last thing before you go, I wrote this while I was listening to a very certain playlist that can (I hope) be found at my LJ (just click at the Homepage button, it will be the entry under the named "Naruto Oneshot Playlist")<p>

And because I do am a very lame person, leave a review if you have time please XD

Have a good day!


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